Saturday, October 8, 2011

31 for 21: Great-Grandma's Love

When you have a family member come into your life who is born with Down syndrome, many emotions take place and different levels of acceptance. For Tom and I, we mourned the day we got the diagnosis for Caleb (Isaac's came 2 weeks later) and from that point on we just moved forward, accepted it, and embraced the idea of raising children with special needs.

Others in the family took a little longer to accept things, to understand them. Great Grandma and Great Grandpa were sad for us, they talked about the burden they would be on us, they wondered how we would be able to care for TWO!? Don't get me wrong, they loved them from the beginning because we have such a wonderful family.. but there was uncertainty. I truly think alot of it is their generation of accepting (or understanding) people with disabilities.

One thing that I can say for a fact is that these boys love their great grandparents so much, they sign to goto their house to visit the dog and to have cookies all the time. Caleb has even just showed up on her doorstep signing cookie without mama knowing it.. she lives 2 houses up from us. We sadly lost Great Grandpa almost 3 years ago now. Great Grandma treasures her boys when they come to visit. The photo above captures the love she feels for the boys. And... its a bonus that she lets the boys watch what they want on tv when they come to visit :)

Great-Grandma is going blind now. She is having a really hard time accepting the fact that she needs help with things that she did so independently before. This too, has given her a little more understanding of the twins, of the fact that they are truly valuable children who just need a little more help here and there. Yet another positive thing (out of the thousands I am sure they will have in their lifetime) that has come out of the Lord blessing our family with these amazingly beautiful boys, who happen to have Down Syndrome and PDD Autism!!!!